Posts Tagged ‘Christian friendly’

“I’m tired of this mess” … Have you ever caught yourself saying that or thinking it as you were working on something on with someone else?  Have you ever prayed for patience just before the mess began and wondered why what little patience you had to begin with was being tested?

Newsflash… You asked for the mess…ahem I mean the test.  How do you think patience is gained?  A muscle only shows definition when it has been developed… So are the godly attributes that make up good character.  Just pass the test… you asked for the mess and your proctor the Holy Spirit is with you.

John 16:33 MSG ^31-33 Jesus answered them, “Do you finally believe? In fact, you’re about to make a run for it—saving your own skins and abandoning me. But I’m not abandoned. The Father is with me. I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.”

© 2011 Lela Jefferson – http://www.memoirsofablackgirl.com

Habakkuk 2:3 AMP – For the vision is yet for an appointed time and it hastens to the end [fulfillment]; it will not deceive or disappoint. Though it tarry, wait [earnestly] for it, because it will surely come; it will not be behindhand on its appointed day.

Today is Sunday, November 20, 2011… It’s officially two weeks before my 33rd birthday.  I am using this time to assess and get myself organized.  It is also less than two months before the New Year and traditionally this is the time I evaluate my “I WILL” statements in prep of creating a new list for the upcoming year.  I believe this year I made some positive strives.  However, I want to make sure I’m doing the last thing God told me to do, from writing assignments to scheduling appointments to creating a book reading schedule and a financial plan that I can actually commit myself to.  Offline I have begun to track my habits and activities no matter how small they are to gage how I spend my time.  Any time wasters must be eliminated immediately…

© 2011 Lela Jefferson – http://www.memoirsofablackgirl.com

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.  Proverbs 3:5-6 NKJV

Recently I sat down and had a conversation with one of my dear friends about Men.  It was not one of those stereotypical sessions where you have two girlfriends talking about guys and dogging them out.  Trust me it was far from that scenario.  We spoke of how important it is for men to see God as their ultimate source for how to love others unconditionally, to forgive and forget, to trust, to be an example of integrity, knowledge, wisdom and how quite simply provide for themselves and their families.

You see, God is the ultimate provider and father; when he created Man he fashioned him after himself.  Man was created because God desired to have a family/people to commune, provide for and share his abundant kingdom with.   Just like God, Man has that very same desire ingrained in him; to provide for those he cares for his own family.

In order for Man to be the true provider which he was created to be he has to be whole heartily in relationship with God.  Without this relationship it will be near to impossible for him to be a true sustainer.  When Man begins to trust in only what he creates of his own hands and things of this earth like money he is trusting in what is temporal.  God is forever and will never lose value, dry up or spoil.

If there is no consistent communication between God and Man, the seeds of confusion can be planted and quickly take root and eventually bear fruit.  Fruit like fear, lack, despair, depression, anger, and desperation on the side of man.  God is confident in who he is.  Man on the other hand until he is rooted and ground in the knowledge of God and his love will always try to make things happen out of his own abilities which are limited.

Man should never get this reality twisted.  Man did not create God, God created Man. And when he did, he did so with a purpose in mind.  Man was to be fruitful and multiple on this earth.  He was to further God’s kingdom until it spread across all four corners of the globe; making a perfect copy of God’s kingdom in heaven on earth.  Man was created to be the steward of this planet.  Yet, when he disobeyed God’s commandment and did not take responsibility for his own actions, he created a communication break down.

First, he ate from the Tree of Life that God explicitly told him not to.  Then he hid from God and lastly he blamed Eve who had not been given the commandment in the first place from God to obey.  Man/Adam was the one that God ultimately held responsible for following the community / Garden of Eden, his rules.  Here is where fear came on the scene and Man began instead of looking up for guidance from God, he began to look down and around himself to see how he could make things happen…

Man, you need to look UP!

© 2011 Lela Jefferson – http://www.memoirsofablackgirl.com

His Princess Bride – Love Letters from Your Prince by Sheri Rose Shepherd. I am so loving this book. I purchased it today (8/16/11) at Borders and have not been able to put it down. I highly recommend it!

5/28/11 I became engaged to the man of my tomorrow, today and yesterday. A man that is not only my Boaz, but also my Issac, Joseph, Malachi, Samuel and Paul. A man that has gone through the fire knowing the only reason why he is still standing is because of the God in Him, the Lord he serves and the calling on his life he must willingly and joyously bow down to. He is the man that gives me the desire to develop daily and truly into a Proverbs 31 Woman…

In 2006 there were a few factors that if I did not have a relationship (meaning a prayer life) with God I may have wanted to check out… nothing extreme like taking my own life. However if I could I would have just become invisible and just disappeared from the craziness of what was becoming my everyday routine. I had bouts with depression, my behavior and attitude changed, and not for the better. I was under a lot of pressure and more responsibilities than I would have cared to have. Yet quitting was not an option for me…

See, 2006 was the year my mother went home to be with the Lord. The job and career that I had successfully progressed in I no longer had a passion to do. In some ways my family was on the verge of falling apart and though I was the youngest I had to stand in place as if I was the eldest and make some life changing decisions. I felt as if I was back in time and was experiencing the emotions and happenings that I did when my dad past five years earlier. It was also the year that I was first offered an opportunity to work in fulltime ministry…

The big difference though the morning my mother passed I awoke for the first time with the unction to pray at 4AM first in the spirit for an hour and then in my natural language just to say…”God… no matter what people, places or things you must remove from my life in order for me to walk and be in your prefect will for it..I will not get angry with you, I so swear.”

Little did I know that promise I cried out to God in the wee hours of the morning on March 15, 2006 would be tested time and time again in the years to come…

To be continued… I welcome your comments!

Lela Jefferson – http://www.memoirsofablackgirl.com

Psalm 45: 1 (Amplified) MY HEART overflows with a ^[a]goodly theme; I address my psalm to a King. My tongue is like the pen of a ready writer.

“Spiritual Vomit”!?!? What the heck is that you may be asking…?  Does it sound gross to you? It should. The repercussions that come from not purging your soul, can cause you to have unexpected verbal accidents.

As I have been taught, man is a tri-part being he is a spirit that possesses a soul/heart (where his thinker, feeler, and chooser reside) and he has and lives in body.  When we die in the physical our spirit man is separated from our flesh (our earth suit) and the decisions we made while we were alive affect where we end up living out eternity.

My spirit man, when I became born again was made new. However my soul/heart needs to be renewed daily.  That means what I allow into its gates through my ears, my eyes, by what I touch and what comes out of my mouth must line up with the Word of God.  This way my spirit and soul/heart can become on one accord.  When they are not, the possibility for verbal accidents based in flesh to happen can seem unavoidable.  For example, I have been called snappy on more than number of occasions, as it relates to my responses… snappy means briskly cold. Am I proud of it? No, it’s an area where I need to continue develop in.  It’s an area where I can visualize my spirit man physically getting ill because it has to witness my soul/heart controlling how my body reacts to situations.  Its base is fear…

Going back to the topic of this article, “Spiritual Vomit”; if you noticed above I made mention that our soul/heart is where our thinker, feeler, and chooser reside.  So it is safe to say that if you think a certain way, and feel a certain way you will choose to do a certain action, right?  Again hypothetically speaking, if I think on doing something for a while (mediate on it), I will begin to have strong feelings and eventually will choose to do it or because I have been mediating on it for so long, I will begin to act out on my thoughts by instinct.  Think of a person that has learned to drive.  After awhile the fact that in order to keep the car moving forward requires them to press their foot on the accelerator and hold onto the steering wheel to keep the car steady will become almost as instinctual as breathing.

The same can be said about a person and their attitudes towards others. If you think a particular way about a person, you will begin to feel also a particular way about them and so either way good, bad or indifferent will begin to treat them based on those feelings.  When you see them your face may also read a different message to what you are actually saying.  This scenario can also cause you to seem phony, not truthful to people because you are attempting to mask your feelings.  I am not saying it’s ok either to go around telling people exactly how you truly feel, because it can be considered offensive.  Depending on the delivery, the timing and the words you use… Trust me, I know.  Choose your battles… However, I do recommend that you examine yourself before you react.

If you are not cautious with your words, you may even begin to make comments that reflect flesh based feelings.  These little comments may seem accidental but are really what you are feeling in the city of your soul.

Usually what makes you angry is what you are afraid of.  Or what annoys you, is what you have given power to trigger negative reactions from you.  When my Pastor taught these two points a number of years ago it really hit home.  What more than anything hit me is that I can choose how I react and what I react to.  I have the ability to stop verbal slip ups from escaping my lips.

Now what are some of the repercussions of NOT purging your soul?

1)      Lost relationships

2)      Doors of opportunity being shut

3)      Communication breakdown

Cheers to fewer clean ups in the aisle called you!

Reference Scriptures

John 6:63 (Amplified) It is the Spirit Who gives life [He is the Life-giver]; the flesh conveys no benefit whatever [there is no profit in it]. The words (truths) that I have been speaking to you are spirit and life.

Romans 8:1-7 (Amplified) ¹THEREFORE, [there is] now no condemnation (no adjudging guilty of wrong) for those who are in Christ Jesus, who live [and] walk not after the dictates of the flesh, but after the dictates of the Spirit.^(A)

²For the law of the Spirit of life [which is] in Christ Jesus [the law of our new being] has freed me from the law of sin and of death.

³For God has done what the Law could not do, [its power] being weakened by the flesh [^[a]the entire nature of man without the Holy Spirit]. Sending His own Son in the guise of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, [God] condemned sin in the flesh [^[b]subdued, overcame, ^[c]deprived it of its power over all who accept that sacrifice],^(B)

⁴So that the righteous and just requirement of the Law might be fully met in us who live and move not in the ways of the flesh but in the ways of the Spirit [our lives governed not by the standards and according to the dictates of the flesh, but controlled by the Holy Spirit].

⁵For those who are according to the flesh and are controlled by its unholy desires set their minds on and ^[d]pursue those things which gratify the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit and are controlled by the desires of the Spirit set their minds on and ^[e]seek those things which gratify the [Holy] Spirit.

⁶Now the mind of the flesh [which is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit] is death [death that ^[f]comprises all the miseries arising from sin, both here and hereafter]. But the mind of the [Holy] Spirit is life and [soul] peace [both now and forever].

⁷[That is] because the mind of the flesh [with its carnal thoughts and purposes] is hostile to God, for it does not submit itself to God’s Law; indeed it cannot.

⁸So then those who are living the life of the flesh [catering to the appetites and impulses of their carnal nature] cannot please or satisfy God, or be acceptable to Him.

© 2011, Lela Jefferson. All rights reserved.